The Scoop: Transportation Sec undercuts Newark Airport safety claims with offhand comment

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spent the weekend insisting Newark Liberty Airport is safe despite recent technical failures and staffing shortages. However, a recent off-the-cuff comment during a lengthy radio segment may have undone all of that messaging legwork.

Duffy stressed on Sunday on NBC News’ Meet the Press that “We are the safest airspace,” and that despite recent incidents at the New Jersey airport, it remained safe.

“I fly out of Newark all the time, my family flies out of Newark,” he said.

The next day, during a 22-minute segment on conservative The David Webb Show, Duffy appeared to change his tune. While discussing problems at the airport, Duffy said: “My wife was flying out of Newark tomorrow. I switched her flight to LaGuardia,” directly contradicting his earlier reassurances.

Then on Tuesday, Duffy went on CNBC to again try to reassure air travelers the Newark Airport “is safe” due to FAA redundancies.

Gizmodo, which first reported the story on Tuesday, didn’t initially receive comment back from either the FAA or the Department of Transportation about Duffy’s comments. However, a spokesperson for the DOT told the Guardian on Wednesday that Duffy had changed his wife’s flight for scheduling purposes, not for safety reasons. “It’s safe to fly out of Newark,” the comment reads. “We are fixing the problems.”

Why it matters: Duffy’s PR misstep highlights the critical need for message consistency, especially in long-form interviews where the risk of veering off-script increases.

His media team likely prepped him with talking points, but even seasoned spokespeople can falter in extended, unscripted conversations, especially when they feel comfortable, as Duffy may have on the friendly program. One stray line can undercut days of disciplined messaging training.

This incident offers a clear lesson for communications teams: prepping for major interviews means more than bullet points.

Spokespeople need to be coached not just on what to say, but how to handle personal anecdotes, casual tone shifts and hypothetical scenarios – all common in longer segments like talk radio or podcasts. Practicing these moments ahead of time by tossing in random questions or going back to an earlier question to see if their answer is consistent can help prevent a moment of candor from becoming a credibility gap.

Of course, even with perfect media training, it’s inevitable that a slip-up will happen during a largely unedited interview. That’s why having a solid after-action plan is so important.

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Casey Weldon is a reporter for PR Daily. Follow him on LinkedIn.

One Response to “The Scoop: Transportation Sec undercuts Newark Airport safety claims with offhand comment”

Name says: May 14, 2025 at 11:47 am

I don’t think Duffy “directly contradict[ed] his earlier reassurances.” If you listen to the exchange, the host asked about Newark in general (the 22R runway closure in addition to ATC shortages), and Duffy said he changed his wife’s flight, which could be in reference to everything happening at Newark. There have been many delays out of Newark, and a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation told The Guardian that the move was done for scheduling purposes.